In August we traveled thru New York to Vermont, then down to the shore near Boston, and finally to a friend's driveway on the Jersey shore. We had one rally - in Vermont. The rest of the time was working on our website, serving our customers, and playing tourist. We even put the kayaks in the water a couple times! The picture at right is on the Schroon river in the Adirondack area of New York. We also visited two Presidential museums - Kennedy in Boston, and Roosevelt in Hyde Park, NY.

Our last rally for the summer season is coming up at the end of September, the Gypsy Gathering Eastern Rally in Celina, Ohio Sep 28 - Oct 2. We will be presenting our normal Picasa and Blogger seminars as well as two new ones, Picasa and Blogger - 'Beyond the Basics.' We will also be presenting our hands-on Computer Boot Camp as a pre-rally.

August Articles

So you don't miss anything, here's the other articles we've written this month.
Picasa Tip: Cut Thru the Haze (includes show-me video)
Picasa Tip: Printing Options, White Borders
Picasa Tip: Different Ways to Save
Presidential Libraries and Blogs
Wi-Fi, the Best of Speeds, the Worst of Speeds
Twitter Humor
Denial of Service Attacks
Google Maps with Custom Route Lines (includes show-me video)
Use a Blog for a Club Website

In this newsletter

• Free Antivirus Programs
• Bunch o' Blogger Tips
• Picasa Tips
• 64 vs 32 Bit Vista

www.GeeksOnTour.com  
An online classroom offering Computer Education for Travelers with 'Show-Me-How' Video tutorials on Picasa, Blogger, Google Earth, Basic Windows Computing and more. Includes a Members Only Q&A forum.

Free Antivirus Programs

Have you heard that using Free anti-Virus programs is not as good as the ones you pay for? We don't think that's true. But, we've heard that opinion tossed around enough that we want to give you our opinion.

There are several Free anti-virus programs that we think suit most people's needs just fine. They are:

1. AVG free
2. Avira Antivir
3. Avast

AVG was a hands-down winner
A couple years ago - AVG free 7.5 was acknowledged by all the geeks we knew as the best antivirus software for personal use. We never heard any stories of people who had problems with AVG. It made our lives very easy! We could recommend AVG and move on to the next topic.

Then AVG came out with version 8. It was still an excellent product, but it added more features and thus became a little bloated. Some people had problems installing it. I was one of them. So, I switched to Avira. Avira worked just fine, it didn't have all those extra features, but it popped up way too many screens trying to get me to upgrade to the paid version (that does have the extra features.) You can't blame them, but it definitely was annoying.

What we use now
Jim is always reading and researching computer products and he liked the reviews of Vipre which is not free, but at $39/yr for 2 PCs (or $49 for any number of household computers), is certainly reasonable. That is what we are using now.

Does Norton slow your computer down?
Lots of people reported that their computers ran much faster when they removed the popular Norton or McAfee pay-for software. But that was also a couple years ago - those products have improved substantially now.

It's not so clear these days what is best for you, but don't let anyone tell you that the pay-for products are better by definition. I overheard one geek informing a group that Free Antivirus programs were inferior because they update their virus definitions less frequently. Although that may be true, here's what 'less frequently' means: most free anti-virus software updates *only* once daily!

To Pay or not to Pay
So, why does anyone pay? For one thing, most free version software is for personal use. If you're a business, you need to buy the business licensed version. The other main feature included in pay-for software is support. If something goes wrong, you have no one to call for help with the free versions.

For more in depth discussion and examples of specific software, see this article by Computer World: Can you Trust Free Anti-Virus Software? If you need to download an Anti-Virus program, we recommend Download.com. When you download from there, you can trust that you're not getting any junk along with the requested program. They list both free and pay-for software ... read the reviews.

Keeping your computer safe
You need an anti-virus program, but that's not all. You need to keep Windows up-to-date, and you also need anti-spyware. All this can be done automatically once you have the right software installed. Check your Security Center to see what is in place for your computer. Probably most important to keeping your computer safe is knowledge. Knowing what to click on, what not to click on and what to delete. Here are some videos to help:

• Safe Computing: Security Center Video (free)
• Avoid Email Scams (free)
• Scan with Microsoft OneCare Live (membership required)
  Note: the location of the Safety Scanner has moved since the video was recorded. You can use this link for OneCare.Live Safety Scanner.

You can also download our seminar handout for 'Practice Safe Computing.'

Bunch o' Blogger Tips

As you know, we believe that Every Traveler Needs a Blog! If you don't already have one, please watch the videos! The beginning 4 videos are free to all and they will show you just how easy it is to make a Blog using the free Blogger.com

For those who already have a blog, here are a few new tips and videos.

1. HTML Errors. "I was unable to publish my Blog post because of an error:
   What is it? And how do I fix it?"
   Watch the Video: Blogger - HTML Error (Free)
2. Use Live Writer. I've written about Live Writer a couple of times: Article 1, Article 2. I now use it almost exclusively for all my blog posts - both Blogger and Wordpress.
   Watch the new Video: Demo of Blogging with Live Writer (Free)
   lots more videos coming soon on Live Writer
3. New Post Editor: They've done it! Blogger has improved the post editor and given us the ability to insert a picture right where we want it rather than at the top of the post.
   Watch the new Video: New Post Editor - Adding Photos (membership required)
   
4. Backup with Export. Over time, your blog becomes *very* important. I feel very safe with it hosted on Google's Blogger ... BUT ... stuff happens, as they say. The only way I feel completely safe is to have a copy of my blog on my computer. Blogger now has a built-in method for doing that. It's called Export. Just go to your Blog's settings, right on the Basic tab, and you'll see 'Export Blog.'
   Watch the new Video: Exporting your Blog (membership required)
   Past videos: Backup your blog, including images , Duplicate your Blogger Blog to Wordpress
   
5. Using Labels. As your blog grows, you need a way to find posts and group them together by different topics. For example, during our 6 years traveling in our motorhome, we've visited 11 Presidential museums. Sometimes I want to see all the blog posts I've written about Presidential Museums. I do that by using Labels.
   Watch the new Video: Adding Labels (membership required)

Picasa Tips

If you've been reading our Picasa Tips, you may have noticed that we have a separate blog devoted solely to Picasa Tips. www.PicasaTutorials.com is where you'll find it. It's all by Chris and Jim ... Geeks on Tour. Since it is our most popular subject, we decided to give it a separate home. All the articles are free.  Please visit, and you can get email notice of each weekly tip by subscribing to the Picasa Tip of the Week.

We also have published a booklet called 'Beginner's Guide to Picasa 3.' You can order this booklet and have it mailed to you for our introductory price of $9.95.

64 vs 32 Bit

This topic comes from our Members Only Q&A forum:

Question: I'm planning on buying a new computer, most now come with Vista 64 bit. I've been told that alot of the current software will not work on 64 bit. Is this true and if it is will it be possible to downgrade to a 32 bit version? Jeannie

Answer: I know a lot people are dealing with this now.  Me included!  I'm in the market for a new computer and I always believe in getting the latest and greatest - because, even that will be out of date next month!

You're right, most of the computers in the store today have the 64 bit Vista installed.  Downgrading is not a simple thing - you need to completely re-install the operating system.  It's certainly something you can ask about where you buy it. I would expect that when you order a customized laptop from Dell, for example, that you could specify 32 or 64 bit.  Surprisingly, I just checked that and it was not one of the options that I found. 

You really need to know what software you're going to run and see if there is a problem.  Many software products work just fine on 64 bit, but doesn't take advantage of the greater power.  If that's the case with the software you use, then, I'd go with the 64 bit, just for future capability and flexibility.

You can read all about 64 bit issues on Microsoft's site.  You can also see a compatibility chart where you can look up your software.  For example, I use Dreamweaver a lot (for building and maintaining websites) and I haven't upgraded in a while - it's version 8.  The compatibility chart says - no go - I need to buy an upgrade.  That's another $3-400 for me.  And, the latest version of Dreamweaver doesn't even take advantage of the 64 bit!  But, my version will have problems.

A friend of ours just ran into another 64 bit incompatibility ... his slide scanner won't work.  Another one couldn't use the Synchronize feature for their Palm device.

No simple answer to this one. You gotta do your homework.

That's all for now. We hope you learned something. Your next issue will be next month. Any questions, please email us. If you like this newsletter, please forward it on to your friends! If you received this issue forwarded by a friend you can subscribe to get your own copy delivered to your in box - it's free. To see the archives of past newsletters, go to www.geeksontour.com/newsletters.

Happy Computing!

The Geeks on Tour website is an online classroom for Travelers who want to learn to use their computers for managing digital photos, making blogs, using maps and other online resources. Anyone can watch our free sample videos, read articles on our Articles and Links Blog, sign up for our free monthly newsletter, or Picasa weekly tips. A small fee makes you a ' member' and you can then view any of our 150+ video tutorials on these subjects.